Halifax LK766 at East Moor airfield.
At 22.09hrs on the evening of the 28th June 1944 this 432 Squadron aircraft took off from East Moor airfield to undertake an operational flight to bomb marshalling yards at Metz but whilst on the climb-out it suffered a failure of the port inner engine. The crew carried out bomb-dumping procedures in the North Sea and returned on three engines to East Moor where the aircraft landed at 00.22hrs on 29th June 1944. A swing developed and it left the runway and ended up on it's belly. The photograph shown above shows a Halifax on it's belly at East Moor around the same date as LK766's mishap and could well be Halifax LK766. I thank Mrs Mary Ann Bourassa for this photograph, her father being the photographer.
Pilot - F/O A G Craig RCAF (J/25979).
Flight Engineer - Sgt Frederick Christopher Stock RAFVR (1868675).
Navigator - F/O W C Howard RCAF (J/28071).
Bomb Aimer - F/O J Semple RCAF (J/28931).
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - F/Sgt R Forbes RCAF (R/164466).
Air Gunner - Sgt G/J Walker RCAF (R/128334).
Air Gunner - Sgt T Graham RCAF (R/225418).
Air Gunner - Sgt Bernard R Justason RCAF (R/174951).
Bernard Justason was flying in 432 Squadron Halifax NP687 on 25th July 1944 when the aircraft was damaged on Ops to Stuttgart. All but one of the crew abandoned the aircraft and survived. With this being after D-Day he was able to evade capture.
Halifax LK766 was built to contract ACFT/891 by Fairey at Stockport and was delivered directly to 432 Squadron at East Moor on 16th February 1944. It carried out it's first operational flight on 1st March 1944. On 29th June 1944 it crashed on landing at East Moor, Cat.Ac/FB damage was the damage assessment and it was repaired on site, being returned to 432 Squadron on 18th July 1944. On completion or shortly after completeion of the repairs it was transferred to 415 Squadron, also based at East Moor, but the date of transfer is not included on the aircraft's AM Form 78. The AM Form 78 does state however that on 10th October 1944 it received a Cat.Ac/FB damage assessment. Exactly what this related to is not confirmed because the 415 Squadron records are very poor at fully identifying aircraft flown operationally. The orb lists a few aircraft being damaged on Ops on the evening of 9th October 1944 and LK766 must be one of these. A repair on site was carried out and the aircraft was returne dto 415 Squadron. It was returned to 415 Squadron on 3rd November 1944. On 13th November 1944 a number of the crew may have been flying in this aircraft when they abanonded the aircraft over the Pennines during a training flight and although the aircraft was landed without damage by the pilot at Burn all his crew spent the night on the Pennines before being located. It was later transferred to 187 Squadron at Merryfield for Transport Command duties on 14th February 1945 and was used for troop movements though the unit converted to Dakota's before duties commenced. The aircraft then probably went into MU store before being struck off charge on 11th May 1945 and scrapped.
Frederick Stock received a commission to the rank of P/O on probation (emergency) on 18th September 1944 (186246) and was promoted to F/O on 18th March 1945. He relinquished his commission in the RAFVR on 10th February 1954 retaining the rank of F/O.